Agile IoT Open Call 1

Entrepreneurship and SMEs

Start Up

Web-Entrepreneurship

IT

IT Applications

Internet of Things

The open call is addressing IoT Hardware and software developing SMEs, entrepreneurs and start-ups. They can submit a proposal to request a sub-grant from the AGILE IoT project.

Applicants are invited to develop applications on top of AGILE software and hardware, extend the envisioned pilots by the project but also implement new use cases demon- strating the potential of AGILE in the IoT commercial domain.

This document describes the First Open Call for Agile IoT, which will be open for appli- cants from October 1, 2017 to October 31, 2017. A budget of 400K Euro is available for sub-grants in the first open call, where 8 companies will be selected. Proposed projects shall generally last 6 months. In this First Open Call, Agile IoT grants funding of maximum 50,000 Euro per successful applicant.

The following list is providing some examples that are considered as promising chal- lenges to be addressed to reach the envisaged objectives. However, proposals are not limited to the presented examples.

This guide for applicants contains the basic information needed to guide you in preparing a proposal for being selected as a sub-grantee in the Open Call 1 of the Agile IoT project. It gives instructions on how to structure your proposal. It also describes how the proposal should be submitted, and the criteria on which it will be evaluated.

1.2 What is Agile IoT

The Agile IoT project is founded under Horizon 2020 European Union funding for Re- search & Innovation.

The main concept behind AGILE is to enable users to easily build IoT applications and control connected devices through a modular IoT gateway and a set of full stack (OS, runtime and applications) IoT software components.

AGILE will deliver a modular IoT gateway for enabling various types of devices (weara- bles, home appliances, sensors and actuators, etc.) to be connected with each other and to the Internet. AGILE will demonstrate the applicability and usability of the developed solutions through creating an ecosystem of early adopters who will exploit the project outcomes in different IoT domains (smart spaces, retail, mobility, well-being, smart cities and environment monitoring, asset tracking, etc.). AGILE will provide a Testbed with IoT gateways with open access based on the existing IoT Lab infrastructure. Users will be able to experiment and develop software for AGILE by deploying their apps on a network

of AGILE gateways that will have access to more than 2500 sensors (leveraging on FIT IoT-Lab infrastructure managed by INRIA).

The project will host open calls for SME’s, start-ups and entrepreneurs who will be invited to develop applications on top of AGILE software and hardware, extend the envisioned pilots by the project but also implement new use cases demonstrating the potential of AGILE in the IoT commercial domain.

The goal of the open calls is to a) evaluate the AGILE outcomes from a market exploita- tion and pragmatic development perspective, b) maximize project impact by engaging external entities (startups and/or SMEs) to build solutions on top of AGILE software and hardware.

1.3 Application for Sub-grants

The AGILE Open Call is bound by the sub-grant rules of the Horizon 2020 programme. Therefore, European SMEs or other legal entities may receive EU sub-grant funding via the AGILE project as explained in the sections below.

The selection process of Open Call 1 will target Startups and SMEs, and will be aimed at fostering further the creation of an ecosystem surrounding the AGILE solutions. In partic- ular from the hardware point of view, applicants will be required to exploit AGILE hardware modularity and extend its capabilities. From a software point of view, applicants will be required to exploit AGILE development environment and implement specific business logic, analytics software, new added value services, management and maintenance so- lutions, etc. which enhance their core value proposition in the IoT domain while demon- strating value for usability of AGILE software solutions. Successful applicants may also extend the existing pilots with additional deployments and with the establishment of new- ones.

1.3.1 Timeline of Open Call 1

Agile IoT Timeline

Open Call 1 opens October 1 2017

Open Call 1 closes October 31 2017

Eligibility Check November 1-3, 2017

Project Reviews November 6-10, 2017

Invitation Pitch and communication November 15, 2017

e-Pitch sessions November 21, 2017

Selection of top 8 projects November 28, 2017

Communication to 8 selected projects November 30, 2017

Start of selected projects execution.... 1st of January 2018

1.3.2 Type of Proposers that are eligible for Funding

Proposers will only be eligible to receive a sub-grant under the rules of the Horizon 2020 program. Especially the following criteria are crucial to receive EU sub-granting via the Agile IoT project:

- European SMEs or other legal entities are defined in the European Commission REGULATION (EU) No 1290/2013, Art. 2.1(13) “'legal entity' means any natural person, or any legal person created and recognised as such under national law, Union law or international law, which has legal personality and which may, acting in its own name, exercise rights and be subject to obligations”.

For realisation of the proposed solution, the proposer needs to make use of the available AGILE IoT gateway software stack.

Successful applicants of this open call will receive financial support for the development of software and/or hardware applications. This includes project-related costs as defined in the submitted proposals of the applicants for the open call. The project only reimburses costs that are related to the following activities of the sub-projects:

- Development and research related costs,

- Costs related for dissemination and test activities,

- Accommodation and travel costs related to activities within the Agile IoT project, serving a purpose as proposed or individually justified w.r.t. the application/ser- vice development,

- Project management related activities.

All these costs must be planned and justified in the proposal for the open call. There is

no financial support for further sub-grants or subcontracting foreseen in the Open Call.

The maximum amount to be granted to each of the application/service development pro- jects in the Open Call is maximum 50,000 Euro. If a proposing organisation is proposing more than one project in the scope of Agile IoT where they can receive financial support, the maximum amount of 50,000 Euro per individual proposer remains.

1.3.4 Sub-grant agreement

The proposers that are selected to receive a sub-grant from the Agile IoT project will be required to sign a sub-grant agreement. This is based on the "standard model grant agreement", while directly referencing several articles from the EC model contracts.

1.4 How to prepare and submit a proposal 1.4.1 One stage submission

Proposals for sub-grants to develop an application in the scope of the Agile Open Call are submitted in a single stage, by submitting a complete application which is prepared as described in chapter 2 of this document.

The current consortium/ beneficiaries of the Agile IoT project may not respond to this call.

1.4.2 Language

The proposal must be prepared in the working language of the Agile IoT project that would provide the sub-grant. Proposals submitted in any other language will not be evaluated.

In the case of Agile IoT this is ENGLISH.

1.4.3 Contents of a Proposal

The Open Call of Agile IoT targets SMEs and entrepreneurs with a working prototype, ready to develop their prototype into a market-ready product and bring it to market. The goal of the Open Call is to accelerate the development into a commercial product and to facilitate the go-to-market into a viable business using AGILE IoT technologies.

The proposal must be complete and shall consist of

a presentation of the working prototype

a description of the current state of technological development of the prototype

that will be commercially developed into a market-ready product;

an executive summary describing the product, current (preferably) and/or poten-

tial clients and markets;

a project plan outlining the main milestones to be reached during the develop- ment (“Project Plan”), as well as a high-level budget breakdown of the project.

The project plan describes how participants will bring their prototype to a commercially ready to market product incorporating AGILE IoT technology over the project course of 6 months.

The main parts of the proposal are shortly outlined in the following sections.

1.4.4 Working Prototype

Having a working prototype is a requirement to be eligible for selection in Open Call 1 of Agile IoT. Proposal shall contain evidence of the existence of the working prototype in the format of a link to your web page, or product demo to be uploaded in the Agile IoT portal. Wireframes, mockups and videos are not considered working prototypes.

1.4.5 Current State of Technical Development

Proposal shall provide a technical description of the existing working prototype; its archi- tecture and the technology stack. It needs to clearly identify on how the application is making use (or will be making use) of the AGILE IoT gateway.

1.4.6 Executive Summary (Business Plan)

Participants must describe their business idea, covering the following topics:

As part of the proposal, an executive summary is expected, providing a clear description of the business idea, the business potential, the business model and the go-to-market strategy.

1.4.7 Project Plan with Milestones and Deliverables

A detailed Project Plan with clearly defined milestones for product development as well as go to market, well-described deliverables and the required budget over the project course of 6 months shall be prepared. It shall provide a clear overview of the required skills and resources as well as the challenges and risk to successfully complete the pro- ject in time, scope and budget.

The Project Plan forms the basis of the contractual agreement with the sub-grantee and the payment procedure upon delivered and successfully reviewed deliverables according to defined milestones. The Project Plan will be used for monitoring of results, centrally by Agile IoT, and to coordinate the reviews of envisaged deliverables.

1.4.8 Submission of proposals

The proposal must be submitted electronically through the Agile IoT page on the F6S website (https://www.f6s.com/agile-IoT).

Once a proposal is submitted, you can no longer modify it or retrieve uploaded documents for further editing or updates.

Proposals must be received by the closing time and date of the call. Late proposals, or proposals submitted to any other address or by any other means than the F6S portal, will not be evaluated.

Do not wait until the last minute to submit your proposal. Failure of your proposal to arrive in time for any reason, including communication delays, is not acceptable as an extenu- ating circumstance. The time of submission will be definitive.

1.5 Proposal evaluation and selection

Evaluations will be conducted remotely. The proposals are evaluated by independent ex- pert evaluators in a cross-regional system, where three evaluators score and rank each proposal according to a grid consisting of a quantitative score for each of the selection criteria, and a qualitative justification of each group of criteria (i.e. Business Potential, Technological Excellence, Team Excellence and Business Status & Potential). All pro- posals submitted in the open calls will be assessed against the criteria as listed in the following Table 1.

The listed criteria in Table 1 for the selection of proposals are understood as follows:

• Go To Market:
this concerns the competitive positioning, the market potential of the proposed solu- tions and the strategy to bring the product commercially to the market. The ques- tions we want to see answered here is: will the market adopt the solution and is the business model solid?

Technological Excellence:
concerns the integration and adoption of AGILE IoT gateway, which and in which way it is used, as well as the potential for leveraging the solution beyond the individ- ual business model into the AGILE IoT ecosystem and beyond. The question we want to see answered here is: is the proposer adopting and integrating AGILE IoT gateway in an optimal way?

Development Status & Potential:

concerns the maturity of the business idea and the validation of the business via the prototype as well as the feasibility of the business idea in being break-even within 2 to 3 years, generating 3 mio € revenue within 3 years and targeting over 10 mio € annual revenue in the long run. The question we want to see answered here is: Will the proposer be able to leverage the provided funding into growing returns?

Team Excellence: this concerns the quality of the team, the ideal mix of business and technical skills in the team and the willingness of the team to succeed. The questions we want to see answered here is: will THIS team be able to build a scal- able business?

The criteria for being invited to the e-pitching event and in the end being awarding finan- cial support are that the project needs to reach a minimum threshold of 70/100 per eval- uation criteria category as defined in Table 1 and 280/400 points as total score over all criteria. If the overall scores of the submitted projects do not reach this threshold, the AGILE consortium reserves the right to adapt the thresholds.

1.6 Review and Reimbursement of Delivered Results

Out of all submissions, 8 projects will be selected. Upon signature of the sub-grantee agreement, the project team/owner will be awarded 10kEuro (fixed amount) and will be accepted to the Agile IoT program to implement their project plan, finalise the develop- ment of their product incorporating AGILE IoT.

The project plan contains the milestones and the related deliverables that will be accom- plished accordingly. Agile IoT neither predetermines, nor defines specific milestones with respect to the management of work. The proposer shall elaborate a sound plan that con- vinces with respect to the quality of the project plan.

From an administrative point of view, for enabling the reimbursement of delivered results, the proposer shall define at least two milestones:

• Quarterly check-up of commercial development and acceleration. Agile IoT will gather the reports on project progress and a team of reviewers will assess whether the projects are on track (i.e. assessing whether all milestones and deliverables are realised that were planned for the quarterly check-ups).

o If the check-up outcome is positive, all milestones are met and delivera- bles are presented, the project owner/team is awarded 15k Euro (fixed amount) after the review and for the work in the previous months, subject to approval by the EC and/or the reviewers of the Agile IoT project.

o If the check-up outcome is negative, a hearing will be organised to ascer- tain the issues at hand. The hearing committee consists of three members of the Executive Project Management Board: the Coordinator, the WP lead, and a third member to ensure a decision can be made by voting if needed. If the outcome of that hearing is favourable, the project team/owner is awarded 15kEuro (fixed amount) after the review for the work in the previous months and is flagged for close monitoring/coaching during the next months. If the outcome of the hearing is negative, no fund- ing is granted to the project owner/team. The project team/owner is no longer eligible for further participation in the Agile IoT activities.

At the end of the commercial development and acceleration, the project team/owner will present their product and the results as well as a detailed report de- scribing the final product and the achievements during the project, how it relates to the initial project plan as well as the decisions taken during the course of the project.

o If all is well and the evaluation outcome is positive, the team is awarded EUR 25k (fixed amount) for the work in the previous months, subject to approval by the EC and/or the reviewers of the Agile IoT project.

o If the evaluation outcome is negative, a hearing is organised to ascertain the issues at hand. The hearing committee consists of three members of the Executive Project Management Board: the Coordinator, the WP lead, and a third member to ensure a decision can be made by voting if needed. If the outcome of that hearing is favourable, the project team/owner is awarded 25kEuro (fixed amount) for the work in the previous months. If the outcome of the hearing is negative, no funding is granted to the project owner/team. The Agile IoT Project Management Board will request a writ- ten justification.

1.7 Support to proposers

The website of Agile IoT provides the key information and will be regularly updated with relevant news and latest events: http://agile-IoT.eu/

Generally, all software solely developed by the proposer will remain their intellectual prop- erty. However, there is an IPR Helpdesk that has as its main objective to assist organisa- tions taking part in Community funded projects on Intellectual Property Rights issues, and in particular on Community diffusion and protection rules and issues relating to IPR in international projects.

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